


Spilt Ink

by DictionaryWrites



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Era, First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-29
Updated: 2014-04-29
Packaged: 2018-01-21 05:21:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1539218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enjolras asks that Grantaire remains behind as the other Amis leave for the evening. Grantaire stays.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spilt Ink

"Grantaire. Remain, please." The drunkard looks up from his bottle, and he looks at Combeferre, as if it is the taller man, the scientist of the three leaders, that can give him his answers. Combeferre just raises his eyebrows, regarding him over the half rims of his glasses, and says nothing.

He falls into step beside Joly (a difficult feat given the extreme difference in the length of their legs) and leaves with him.

Grantaire is alone, and he looks to Enjolras. The blond does not look at him, neatly folding his papers and his maps fingers that somehow never become stained with ink, as if they are immune to it.

Grantaire absently wonders if the purity to those fingers symbolizes something, but he is not quite sober enough to voice a question, and not nearly drunk enough to think on it further.

"Do you mock me, Grantaire?" Enjolras asks, and then he looks up, his eyes meeting Grantaire’s, and not for the first time the drunkard is utterly struck by the beauty in the other man’s face; a sort of Greek handsomeness that tugs at Grantaire’s very heart-strings and affects him as if he might swoon.

A curious idea, that; the ugly drunkard swooning at the glance of the beauty before him, so taken aback by even the barest notice of his presence. It might make a good cartoon if Grantaire had the courage to pick up a pen.

”Never.” He says, when in reality the answer is almost always. He picks on the sardonic expression he often utilizes when he wants to bring Enjolras to anger, when he wants the other man to snap at him and tell him to get out. Grantaire wants desperately to be here, alone with Enjolras, at his side. With similar desperation, he wants to get out.

Enjolras frowns.

It is a simple thing; the purse of his plump lips, thinning their perfect lines, a slight furrow to his brows, an ever so slight narrowing to his eyes. Grantaire fancies that he might like to paint that expression; he doubts he ever will. 

"Grantaire, come." He gestures with one slender finger - absently Grantaire remembers Courfeyrac saying that their leader plays the harpsichord, and a thought comes to him of playing a duet with Enjolras, those clean, slender fingers so close to his own scarred, stained ones. Grantaire obeys, powerless not to.

Enjolras is not tall, and Grantaire has to look down on him once they are closer, and it feels wrong - Grantaire is so used to thinking of Enjolras on his pedestal. Perhaps that is one reason among hundreds that he keeps his distance from the man he adores.

Enjolras is still frowning. 

They stand in silence: Grantaire swallows. Enjolras hums, chewing the inside of his lower lip. The drunkard tries not to show his utter enchantment at the slight, slight movement of the other man’s mouth. 

"Thou art a bafflement." Enjolras says, and he sounds so confused, so  _curious_.  Grantaire recognizes the tilt of his head for a shared thing; Combeferre does the same when confronted with a new statistic, and Courfeyrac does so when rejected by one of the numerous women he invites to dinner. It is odd, he thinks, to be alone with one member of a trio that feels like it ought never be separated.

Especially when that member is calling him  _thou._

Grantaire is caught as a fox in the hen house when the farmer comes with a lantern, staring at the other man, wide-eyed. Enjolras’ jaw twitches; defiance. But who is he defying?

"What is the point of a man’s existence if everyone knows his soul?" Grantaire asks. "Dost thou hate it?" He asks, when in reality he means, "Dost thou hate  _me_?”

"I have hate for nothing." Enjolras says, and Grantaire feels something uncomfortable abruptly flip in his stomach; "The difference between you and mon ami Enjolras, Grantaire," Courfeyrac had once said to him after too much wine and not enough bread, "Is that he loves mankind more than he could love his own mother. He has faith in the world, and hates nothing. You doubt everything from God to the sun, and hate everything."

He had been wrong, of course. How could Grantaire hate everything, after all, when Enjolras existed?

"And yet thou art frustrated. With me, perhaps?"

"With you." Enjolras agrees. He reaches out, and Grantaire thinks for a moment that that slender hand, with its long fingers and its clean, marble flesh, might touch his cheek.

It does not.

Enjolras adjusts his cravat with a briskness and an expression of concentration. Grantaire feels he has seen this face before, and then remembers; it is the face Joly and Musichetta wear when they fuss over Bossuet’s stockings, or his shoes, or his tie.

Grantaire wants desperately to swallow, but he does not.

"Lean, Grantaire."

"Pardon?"

"Thou hearest my order and yet-" Grantaire bends with the fluidity of a clockwork lever, so that he is at Enjolras’ level, and so they are far to close, far closer than he has any right to be. Grantaire is Icarus, too close to the sun he admires, but the heat is too glorious for him to pull away now.

Enjolras’ frown disappears; the lines on his face smooth away, and he is marble. His lips twitch; a smile. Enjolras is smiling. Grantaire does not believe Enjolras has ever smiled at him before.

"I smell of wine." Grantaire says, by way of apology.

"Always. It matters not." And then Grantaire felt warmth against his own chapped lips, sweet warmth from plump lips; his heart beat faster in his chest. Might he swoon? He might.

He stares at Enjolras draws away again; he knocks over the ink bottle and it spills, all over his clean, clean hands, soaking into the white of his shirt. Grantaire stops short, and he stares, struck.

He wonders if this symbolizes something.

"Grantaire, water. Will you get me some…?" Grantaire runs to do so, and he takes the utmost care in cleaning the black ink from Enjolras’ fingers and his hand, but it leaves stains. The "thou" is gone now, but Grantaire does not mind. It matters only that it was there, for a short time.

"It will come out." Enjolras says dismissively, waving his hand, and he smiles at Grantaire, smiles with his teeth and his lips and his eyes. "Will you walk with me?"

"Yes." Grantaire promises, and he nods. "Yes, I will walk with you."


End file.
